Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 549 Marketing and New Movies
Although Jet Li cannot get A-level productions in Hollywood like Jackie Chan, he also deserves the title of world superstar.

They have established their reputation step by step through the real profits from hit movies.

When Zhang Yimou was filming "Hero", Sony Columbia specifically asked Jet Li to star in the film, otherwise they would not invest.

When Chen Kexin was preparing to shoot "The Warlords", she also rushed to find Jet Li to star in it. Without Jet Li, those investors would not have been able to give Chen Kexin so much money.

With Jet Li, they would be very willing to pay him 100 million yuan for the film.

What they didn't expect was that the sales of overseas discs of "The Warlords" failed.

But this is not Jet Li's problem. His previous seven or eight movies were all global hits without any failure. Why did yours flop?

This is entirely Chen Kexin's own problem. He is well-known for his many outrageous actions.

Despite this, "The Warlords" took in a lot of box office revenue in Asia thanks to Jet Li's fame. Combined with the more than 200 million yuan in domestic box office revenue, the investors did not lose money and even made a small profit.

If this movie disc can sell well, the investors can still make a lot of money.

Therefore, during the early 21st century, Jet Li has always been a popular figure and has been sought after by major film and television companies.

For example, this year, he took on two movies, one is "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate" and the other is "Legend of White Snake" invested by Juli Film and Television.

Therefore, Xu Ke and Jet Li's "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" and Zhang Yimou and Bell's "The Flowers of War" can be said to be a peak showdown.

Because the two films were scheduled to be released early in the Lunar New Year period, the impact they created was even more sensational than the competition between the two major directors of "Moon" and "Sword Rain" during last year's Spring Festival, and it was also more anticipated.

With these two movies sitting in the Lunar New Year period, other companies' blockbusters have all avoided them and are reluctant to put them in the Lunar New Year period to compete with those two movies.

Golden Harvest gave Jet Li the market price for his role in "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", which was 10 million US dollars. This was done out of respect for Golden Harvest and Liu Zhou. Otherwise, if he had offered 12 million or 15 million US dollars, you would have had to pay it.

Just like in another movie he starred in this year, "Legend of White Snake", he had no room for negotiation and his salary was directly quoted as 1.2 million yuan, equivalent to nearly million yuan.

The total investment of this film was 2.3 million yuan, and Jet Li's salary alone accounted for more than half of it.

But no one blamed him for anything. He was worth the price, and it was obvious that this movie was made to promote the heroine and to give the investors a chance to satisfy their acting addiction.

In this case, Jet Li certainly has nothing to say. His only request is of course a salary that is enough to impress him, otherwise no one will care about you.

With the participation of Jet Li, one of the four great legends of ancient Chinese folklore was added, and there was also Huang Shengyi, who was still a popular star girl at the time, and finally a huge investment of more than 200 million yuan.

"Legend of the White Snake" was a highly anticipated major production in the industry when the project was first launched.

However, Yangzi overestimated himself and underestimated how deep the waters of the film industry are. A new company like Juli Film and Television, which has no experience in the film industry, cannot operate such a large-scale movie at all.

The original time and space "Legend of White Snake" was released during the National Day this year. Its competitor is "Painted Wall" produced by Guangguang, which followed "Painted Skin".

Both films are starred by a husband-and-wife team, but the former has a big star like Jet Li in the lead, so not many people thought that "Painted Skin" could win.

The final result was that "Legend of White Snake" won, but Juli Film and Television suffered a crushing defeat.

In terms of publicity and promotion, Guangguang Media almost beat Juli Film and Television, leaving it with no ability to fight back.

Also a bad movie, "Painted Skin" took in 1.78 million yuan at the box office with an investment of million yuan, thanks to Guangxian's strong publicity and public relations capabilities.

Despite so many favorable news, "Legend of White Snake" had a box office of only 2.3 million yuan despite an investment of 2.11 million yuan.

So although "Legend of the White Snake" beat "Painted Skin", Juli Films was defeated by Light Media. Not only that, Juli also suffered a great loss in this movie.

This battle between the White Snake and the Painted Wall can be said to be the most classic and successful public relations battle in the past decade, and Guangguang Media has used every possible means.

In fact, this also proves one thing, that dark horses are not so easy to form.

Looking at the low-budget dark horse movies in the first decade of the new century in the original time and space, they were basically invested and produced by medium-sized or larger film companies. After all, only they have people and channels.

For example, "Lost on Journey" and "Crazy Stone" are often mentioned in entertainment online articles.

In addition to Huaqi Film and Television, the former also has investment from Hubei Changjiang Film Group. This company may not be well-known, but it is very powerful.

The annual box office of one of its cinema chains in Hubei Province accounts for half of the province's total annual box office. If you want to release your movie in Hubei Province, you have to cooperate with it.

Everyone is even more clear about "Crazy Stone". The main reason why this movie has the opportunity to become a dark horse is the support of China Film.

There is also a movie called "Nightclub" which somewhat imitates the multi-line narrative of "Crazy Stone", which also has investments from China Film and Chengtian.

Another dark horse since the new century, "Love Is Not Blind", was also invested by Perfect World and New Classics Media.

So it’s not easy to be a dark horse. Movies produced by small companies basically only last for a few days in theaters.

Even if you can open up the channels, it is difficult for a small company to operate a large-scale production. Even the Ningxia Film Group couldn't handle "Painted Skin" and had to bring in several other companies.

To be honest, if it weren’t for “Painted Skin”, many people in the industry might not know that Ningxia actually has a film studio.

I don’t know if “Painted Skin” has exhausted all the luck of Ningxia Film Group. They haven’t produced any good films since then. On the contrary, they have produced a lot of bad films, and they all cost a lot of money.

For example, they are currently filming "King Kong", which is all about fighting. The action scenes are okay, but the plot is really amazing.

It can be said to be a complete bad movie. If there was no plot, no dialogue, and no lines, this movie might be worth watching.

This is not the most famous one. The following famous movie "Asura" was also invested and produced by Ningxia Film Group.

So they eat as much as the bowl can hold. Yoko is just too confident and even a little arrogant because of her family background, so she arrogantly invites Jet Li to play the role of a partner for the couple.

In the end, he also realized the dangers of the film industry. Compared with Guangguang, Yoko's family background was nothing.

To be honest, when it comes to promotional capabilities, even Golden Harvest Group cannot say that it is better than Guangguang. They started out by making TV programs and have cooperated with more than 100 TV stations across the country.

Sometimes Golden Harvest also needs to rely on the light channel when releasing movies.

Precisely because they possess such powerful publicity capabilities, Guangguang was able to gain momentum very quickly once it entered the film industry. Within a few years, it was already on par with Huayi and Bona.

But in terms of means, the Wang brothers and Yu Dong together may not be a match for Wang Changtian.

When Enlight Media was preparing to enter the film industry, it hired Zhang Zhao to be the general manager of Enlight Pictures, who was responsible for Enlight's film business. Under Zhang Zhao's leadership, Enlight Pictures grew from nothing to a large film and television company, and its performance maintained a 100% growth rate every year.

As a result, Zhang Zhao was kicked out shortly before Guangxian went public. Not to mention shares, he didn't even get any benefits at all.

Zhang Zhao was not going to mess with Wang Changtian's behavior of abandoning him after he had done his job, so he turned around and joined Jia Yueting's LeTV Pictures.

In just one year, Zhang Zhao led LeTV Pictures to become one of the top five private film and television companies, and also recruited Zhang Yimou under his command.

Afterwards, Zhang Zhao also responded to Wang Changtian. Only three days after the release of "Lost in Hong Kong", the high-definition Blu-ray video was already being spread outside.

The pirated version is a Blu-ray, and it’s six gigabytes in size.

In addition, Zhang Zhao also asked LeTV to arrange people to frantically discredit "Lost in Hong Kong", which resulted in the box office of "Lost in Thailand", which was originally likely to exceed 2 billion yuan with the aftereffect of "Lost in Thailand", but in the end it only took 1.6 billion yuan.

The movie that was released together with "Lost in Hong Kong" during the National Day that year was Lu Chuan's "Nine-story Demon Tower", and this movie was invested and released by LeTV.

Therefore, no one in the industry would believe that many of the things in "Lost in Hong Kong" were not done by Zhang Zhao.

Of course, Wang Changtian, who was able to kick Zhang Zhao away without paying any price, was not that simple.

The result was that Lu Chuan and "Nine-story Demon Tower" were criticized to pieces, even though the movie was a terrible dud to begin with.

When it comes to marketing methods, Wang Changtian, who was a journalist, is the expert at it. Coupled with Guangxian's powerful channels, it is hard to say whether Bona and Huayi combined will be enough to compete in the public relations field.

However, although Wang Changtian took out his anger on Lu Chuan and the Nine-story Demon Tower, he did not cause any harm to Zhang Zhao.

After all, this movie is a bad movie. Even if the light didn't criticize it, its box office wouldn't be that high.

On the other hand, on the tourist side, "Lost in Hong Kong" suffered substantial box office losses.

What's more, Guangxian is a listed company. If the box office of "Lost in Hong Kong" can exceed 2 billion, it will be a great boost to Guangxian's stock price.

Here and there, the light has lost hundreds of millions.

So Zhang Zhao won the duel between the two this time, which was considered a relief.

In this life, Liu Zhou had recruited Zhang Zhao to Jiahe Group very early on, and the two of them did not have so many dirty deeds. Wang Changtian even treated Zhang Zhao with courtesy.

As the person in charge of Golden Harvest Group, a film and television company with a scale of nearly 100 billion, he is a top figure not only in the industry, but also in the entire Chinese business world. After all, he is not just an employee.

But no matter what, Guangguang and Wang Changtian are not people who are easy to mess with.

Then Liu Zhou couldn't help but think that Golden Harvest will also release a movie called "Cold War" during the National Day holiday this year, which will face off against "Painted Skin" and "White Legend".

I don't know whether Guangguang will turn its guns against "Cold War", but after all, Golden Harvest is not a soft persimmon like Juli Film and Television, so I don't think Wang Changtian will be so unwise.

Perhaps they can first cooperate with Guangguang to deal with "Legend of White Snake" and then divide the National Day box office.

This matter can be handed over to Zhang Zhao at that time, and he can discuss the possibility of cooperation with Wang Changtian.

As April approached, there was nothing big happening in the entertainment industry. Only two well-known Hong Kong and Taiwan artists, Mo Shaocong and Sun Xin, were imprisoned for laundry detergent, and two more actors were added to "Prison on Fire".

At this time, Liu Zhou, who had finished dealing with the affairs of Zhoushan Literature and Sina Group, also began to deal with the affairs squeezed by Jiahe Group.

During this period, Jiahe Group has more affairs to deal with. A high-level meeting has just ended, and the heads of various departments are also working. There are many things that need to be reported to him.

Especially Golden Harvest Films and Golden Harvest Film Base, because they involve coordination issues involving huge amounts of money, they require him to personally review and handle them.

Golden Harvest Films has had many films launched and in preparation recently, with a large portion of the funding coming from loans. For example, for the total investment of 2 million for "Mojin: The Last Dragon" and "Painted Skin ", Golden Harvest borrowed million from the bank.

These two projects are both Jiahe’s focus and have attracted much attention from the outside world, so the bank is very happy to lend money.

Since banks have increasingly improved their lending practices to film and television companies, Golden Harvest can be said to be the company that has benefited the most.

With Jiahe's strength and high-quality brand image, banks like customers like Jiahe the most, and no loan application of Jiahe has been rejected.

In addition, it was decided at the meeting to transfer last year's profits from Golden Harvest Films to the Golden Harvest Film and Television Base as construction costs, which involves 10 to 20 billion yuan in funds.

Liu Zhou couldn't just ignore all these things. Money is the most sensitive thing, and you should never use it to test a person's heart.

It took Liu Zhou nearly a week to finish dealing with Jiahe's affairs.

When he first looked at the documents, he also noticed a small thing: "Lost in Thailand" had been prepared, and Xu Zheng was ready to take the crew to Thailand to start filming.

The story is still the same story, and the main creators are still the same three, but I don’t know if the box office results will still be the same.

If a movie can get a super high box office, it usually has the right time, place and people.

Because Liu Zhou's appearance will definitely have a certain impact on "Lost in Thailand", he can only hope that the impact it causes will not affect the box office.

Even Liu Zhou couldn't ignore its box office of 1.3 billion.

As for Ning Hao's science fiction film, he is still polishing it. Since learning about Liu Zhou's somewhat whimsical plan, he himself has felt somewhat excited.

Although it is difficult, what if this plan really comes true?

The thought of this filled him with energy, and he attached great importance to the project "Tian Yi" and strived for perfection in every aspect.

At this time, Zhang Zhao came to Liu Zhou's office.

He has come here many times in the past few days, and Liu Zhou will also consult with him when dealing with some things.

He saw the documents related to Lost in Thailand on Liu Zhou's desk and couldn't help but laugh:
"Mr. Liu, you really care about this movie."

“It’s not that I’m very concerned, but I think this movie has a great chance of becoming a hit.”

"I see. It seems I have to put more effort into this movie in the future. By the way, Mr. Liu, I also have a movie. I wonder if you are interested in it."

(End of this chapter)